After Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, the New Jersey State Police were one of the first agencies to send troopers to help — even before they knew they would be reimbursed for the costs.

When Hurricane Sandy slammed into New Jersey two weeks ago, that assistance had not been forgotten in Louisiana.

"They came down there because we needed them and they were a godsend," said Louisiana State Police Superintendent Col. Michael Edmonson, who within 24 hours of New Jersey’s request had 25 men on the road in 12 vehicles on their way north.

New Jersey State Police Superintendent Col. Rick Fuentes, who said the troopers will bolster feelings of security along the Jersey Shore, was happy to have the extra manpower from the Gulf Coast.

"I get people who have been through this before," Fuentes said. "There’s a certain amount of expertise there we get to learn from."

But the cavalry that came to New Jersey in the wake of Sandy did not just come from Louisiana. It came in waves from all over. Convoys driving all night from Pittsburgh. And Texas and Michigan and Kansas, and dozens of other places, near and far.

In the two weeks since New Jersey was slammed by the superstorm, an army of thousands from at least 28 states has mobilized from across the country to help the state get back on its feet.

Utility workers from Oklahoma Gas & Electric. State troopers from Mississippi. Federal emergency workers from Washington. Ships and planes from the military. Gasoline tankers and personnel from the National Guard.

In a state where whole communities were destroyed, more than 2 million customers lost power, and record storm surge flooded homes and businesses, recovery has been slow and trying to many. But if not for the outside help, officials say, there is no telling how long the recovery could take.

"The devastation we’ve seen is not going to be fixed overnight," Gov. Chris Christie said on Friday.

Relief agencies say the destruction from Sandy will likely result in largest outpouring of support since Hurricane Katrina, outpacing Hurricanes Ike and Gustav and the big wildfires in California.

By Friday, the Red Cross had raised $117 million in donations and pledges for relief work across 10 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The Salvation Army had raised $5 million online and by phone.

The majority of the direct and most immediate outside help to the state so far, though, has been from outside utility companies providing emergency crews, along with troopers from eight states who came to assist with security, and National Guard personnel from other states. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which opened 16 Disaster Recovery Centers, said it brought in 5,300 personnel, including emergency responders and inspectors.

THE CAVALRY

More than 12,000 out-of-state utility workers — in trucks emblazoned with logos from power companies as far away as Duke Energy in Ohio, Florida Power & Light, and Oncor in Texas — began arriving even before the storm.

While New Jersey’s four electric companies said they were more proactive recruiting out-of-state help this year than they were last year for Irene, Public Service Electric & Gas Co. said it initially had fewer workers lined up before the storm hit than they had hoped.

"It’s competitive and it also depends a little bit on the size of the companies," explained PSEG president Ralph LaRossa. "Our initial request was for 600 extra lineman, and we recently bumped that up to 1,000."

Seaside Heights residents return to homes after Hurricane SandyAlmost two weeks after they evacuated as Hurricane Sandy approached New Jersey, residents and property owners returned to their homes in Seaside Heights, NJ to view the devastation from the storm. In one house, tenants have lost all their belongings, their home and their jobs. Meanwhile, their landlord frets over how he'll pay the mortgage without their rental income.

By the week after Sandy struck, PSE&G had 4,100 workers from out-of-state pitching in, from more than 50 companies in 21 states.

Orange & Rockland, which serves thousands of customers on the northern tip of New Jersey, brought in 2,500 mutual aid workers from other states who helped restore power in northern New Jersey and the company’s territory in neighboring New York.

"We’ve had contractors in from 20 states plus Ontario, Canada, over 2,500 contractors," said spokesman Mike Donovan. "I know that we had (workers from) California, Alabama, Georgia."

Some arrived courtesy of heavy lift transport aircraft provided by the Air Force.

"We airlifted 75 trucks and 200 workers in from Southern California Edison," Donovan noted. "The Air Force flew them into Newburgh’s Stewart Airport. They arrived Friday night, and we put them to work Saturday first thing."

When major storms hit, New Jersey’s utilities turn to Mid-Atlantic Mutual Assistance for help, according to Tom Born, who oversees emergency management for Atlantic City Electric.

The assistance organization contacts member utilities in various states and finds out how many workers are available to travel and help. Then it divvies them up after finding out the needs of the storm-struck utilities via a conference call.

"There’s a lot of dynamic situations that go into resource allocation," explained Born. "It’s not a simple formula."

Factors that come into play include the number of customers a utility has out of power, how far the workers travel, and whether the utilities use the same contractors, where non-staff workers are concerned.

Andy Solanick, a utility worker form Scranton Pennsylvania, is one of 100 out-of-state utility workers who report to the staging area located in the Essex County Shopping Center. Robert Sciarrino/The Star-Ledger

"In the end, the truth is every company has been in the situation where they need people and they can’t be overly selfish on a call or dishonest or anything like that," Born said. "There’s a limited number of resources, that’s the truth, and the demand is higher than the supply. We fairly allocate as best we can on these calls, and everybody gets something."

What it will all cost is still a blank check right now, but the it will not be cheap. The borough of Madison, one of only nine municipalities in New Jersey that runs its own utility, supplemented its nine-person crew by requesting out-of-state help from the Public Power Association of New Jersey, which includes the other independent municipalities. Through that group, Madison got 11 workers from Louisiana and five from Dover, Del.

When the workers are doing 16-hour shifts and need food and board, the costs add up quickly. Codey said the total cost of the extra labor after Sandy was at least $140,000.

"We’re thrilled to have them," Codey said. "They were wonderful people — they recognize the emergency and came to help."

The companies sending workers forgo any profit — billing the recipient utilities once the crisis is over for the actual costs incurred in the response.

"COFFEE AND RED BULL"

A sense of the scope of the restoration operation in New Jersey could be seen on Friday in a parking lot at the Essex Green Shopping Center in West Orange, blocked off from shoppers and filled with utility trucks sporting license plates from Tennessee, Wisconsin, Illinois and Pennsylvania.

Workers were getting dropped off by the busload from nearby hotels to meet up with their crews and gather supplies and assignments. Some were collecting extra wire and tools stored in boxes along the perimeter of the parking lot, stepping over 50-foot utility poles stacked like toy Lincoln Logs on the ground nearby.

Utility workers Colton Kingdon, from Greenville Calif., Bob Bogan from Philadelphia and John Lasko from Collegeville, Pa. meet at the staging area located at the Essex Green Shopping Center. Robert Sciarrino/The Star-Ledger

They reviewed safety precautions with supervisors and got their assignments for the day — usually in the form of a packet of paper, sometimes 2 inches thick, with circuit prints and damage locations — and then headed out.

The workday for them typically begins about 6 a.m. and lasts until 8 or 9 p.m. For most, it was the 10th straight workday.

"We’re livin’ on coffee and Red Bull," said Colton Kingdon, 20, a California utility worker who has been on the job just two months and has already been through two hurricanes. He was part of the relief effort when Hurricane Isaac struck the Gulf Coast in August.

The job here — 1.7 million PSE&G customers were without power at the height of the storm — has been massive. Not only was the storm damage severe, but many of the lines, poles and transformers throughout New Jersey are old, dating back to the 1930s in some places.

"We joke wherever you go, the system’s bad. It’s 75 or 80 years old here, there, most places," said John Lasko, of Collegeville, Pa.

A power line is a power line, these men say, but the nomenclature can also vary from state to state. "What we call an insulator, they may call something else," said Frank Hunter, an operations and resource manager for PSE&G.

They have seen the frustrations of residents, angry over the continued loss of power and heat, boil over at times.

On his first day here, Stan Mourey of Fairfield, Ill., a lineman for Henkels & McCoy, a Pennsylvania-based emergency response contractor, took a wrong turn heading back to the hotel and a group of people egged his truck.

"That’s just how some of them are," Mourey said, shaking his head. "People are getting irate, they’ve been out 10 days — it’s just something you deal with."

Out of earshot of supervisors and media reps, their opinions of what they’ve experienced become a little more weathered down. Harsher words are used to describe some of the frustrated home owners they’ve encountered.

Andy Solanick, 26, of Scranton, Pa., who was an infantry Marine in Iraq, wears a white construction cap with a sticker that says: "No whining."

"Sometimes you just let people yell," he said. "They’re frustrated, they’re cold, so you let em’ go."

But for all the rants the men have listened to (and most estimate they get hollered at two or three times per day), there are also the many people who stop to say thank you and others who express it in the form of food and warm drinks.

"Pizza, donuts, coffee, cakes. I must have gained 15 pounds the past two weeks," said Joe Ravis as he stood 55 feet up in a bucket truck that swayed precariously in the wind.

Chad Parks and Merrill Hammett, utility workers for Alabama Power, said they also felt welcome after arriving in New Jersey about a week ago with a convoy of eight trucks.

"I love it up here," Parks said at a staging area at the Browntown Shopping Center on Route 516 in Old Bridge. "The people have been very gracious and very understanding. They have also been very kind to us, too."

Hammett said he was amazed when people, who saw the trucks in the shopping center parking lot, came over and "were bringing us lots of coffee and doughnuts."

What affected them most from an emotional standpoint were "the many thank yous," Parks said.

"People driving by and seeing our trucks, slow down, blow their horns and yell thank you to us," Parks said. "Some even pulled into the parking lot to thank us. It’s been amazing."

HELP KEEPS COMING

In addition to the many thousands of utility workers, more than 280 troopers from eight states deployed last weekend to New Jersey to provide security at checkpoints and patrols in Monmouth County from the Bayshore area to Brielle, and in Ocean County on the barrier islands from Point Pleasant Beach to Long Beach Island.

Most of the troopers are based at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is expected to pick up most if not all of the cost of the additional manpower, although the State Police could not provide an estimate of what it will cost.

To give his men some moral support, Edmonson, the Louisiana police superintendent, came to New Jersey last week and toured the Shore.

He said his troopers were gratified by the receptions they were getting.

"It’s all about trying to return to normalcy. I mean that’s what people want. They want to feel safe. They can care less the color of our uniform, the shape of our badge," he said.

What he has seen has been a lot of emotional moments.

"My guys are saying they’re (New Jerseyans) coming up to them and giving them a hug," he said.

Edmonson said most of his troopers did not want to leave.

"They left behind wives, they left behind families, they left behind kids. Several of them were going to the LSU-Alabama game — that’s a big game — they missed that," he said. "You would think five, six, seven days later they’re going, ‘Look, I want to go home.’ And they don’t. They want to stay."

New squads of about 237 troopers from several states are on their way, New Jersey officials said.